System: Communication Best Practices

This is an excerpt from my longer article “Systems: How Product Best Practices Drive Success at Amazon.

Communication Best Practices

A strong communication culture drives better articulation of product strategy. Perhaps as a result of the WBR, Amazon’s culture of accountability means you get very good at telling your product story to stakeholders at every turn. Four key communication documents are so ingrained into my memory that I feel they are essential. Together they make up what I consider a Product Communication System:

1. Weekly Callouts

   • Callouts are email reports to your stakeholders that include your product’s weekly highlights. You are product storytelling in words and numbers, highlighting Hits, Misses, and Learnings while consistently highlighting a standard set of product metrics. This provides transparency and accountability, and, if used correctly, it also helps you prepare your monthly product review

   • Frequency: Weekly

2. Product Flashes

   •  When something is nearing release and being closely monitored, stakeholders tend to have questions that can’t wait a week. This is when you know it’s time to publish a Product Flash While lighter than Weekly Callouts, these are still pretty packed with information (this is Amazon, after all). These flashes go out daily from the runup to just after launch, letting stakeholders know how the product is performing at this critical stage.

   • Frequency: Daily

3. Product Reviews

   • A Product Review is a monthly report summarizing your product’s progress. It has a companion meeting where the report is read by your stakeholders before the meeting begins. It is a cross between a weekly review and an operational planning document.

   • Frequency: Monthly

4. Launch Announcements

   • When a significant milestone is reached, typically a major feature release or launch of a new product, you'll need to send an announcement addressing the who, what, why, when, where and how. Don’t forget to credit the team that made it all happen. 

   • Frequency: Situation-Dependent

Photo by Manouchehr Hejazi on Unsplash